Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Crammed it all in...

Our last week of summer, was a busy one. We managed to head out into the mountains on 3 separate occasions. I blogged about our trip to Kananaskis, sans kids already.

We decided to head out for a picnic to Elbow Falls on Sunday [the day after we'd
returned from our little get away for two] The day could not have been
nicer, nor could it have been any busier... Yowser, I was completely
speechless as to the sheer volume of people trying to park their cars...
I'm glad we'd gotten out there earlier in the day. Mental note to self, try to avoid a breath-taking Sunday next time.

This past week Mason was in a power skate camp. It was only an hour long, but it was 5 days long. I can't believe this guy is going to play hockey this year. Eeks.. He never complained about going once, and they worked these little 9 and 10 years olds really hard. Hockey Rule #1, you have to be able to cart your own equipment in and out of the arenas.

On Monday we made a trip to the zoo, specifically to check out the Penguin Plunge. We got there first thing, and only had to wait about 20 minutes to check out the action. It was worth the wait... They are really neat to see. We went to the Zoo with Ama [used our AMA card and saved 20% on admission] We were there for about 6 hours... We almost did it all. We didn't get to the Dinosaur park, which is the highlight for my kids. These kids have always loved the zoo. We spent so much time there when they were little, but now with them in school, it's hard to justify buying a seasons pass when we can only get there on weekends or the occasional day off.

Wednesday
morning I got a phone call from the library, and Miss Madelyn's name had
been drawn to win a book. She was so excited, we went over that afternoon to pick up her prize. Out of all the books she got to skim through, she
picked a book about spiders. She can now ramble off the most interesting
spider facts, that might tend to make some people feel a little bit uncomfortable.
[She's still mad she wasn't 19 when we visited the Bug Zoo
in Victoria...] She wanted to get her hands on that tarantula SO
BADLY... She has informed us numerous times that she is going back, as soon as she turns 19... A part of me really wonders whether that's something she'll still be really interested in when she's 19... I guess we wait and see...

We took a trip on the C-Train and went up the Calgary Tower. That glass floor is freaky... I don't love it.

We decided to take the kids back out to Kananaskis, for one night. We couldn't believe that there was availability on the long weekend. We hauled our bikes out once again, and did the paved biking trails. We went about 12 kms round trip, the kids were tired after that, for sure. But they both did great. It took us about an hour and a half one direction, and when we turned around to head back, it took us less than half an hour. We hardly had to peddle at all on the way back. It was awesome, and the scenery is absolutely spectacular.

Monday we headed to Cochrane for the annual Labour Day Parade. The kids are always so excited for this parade, because they throw out candy...

Which brings us current....

Today was the first day of school. The kids started to back in grades 5 and 2. I have to get the pictures off my camera. We had pancakes and bacon for breakfast, we got ready with time to spare. The morning went smoothly.